Mylene's Mindful Excavations

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Sunday, November 28, 2010

This blog will cover "The Duchess and the Jeweler," "The Legacy," "Lappin and Lapinova," and "The Searchlight." I was shocked when I read in Virginia Woolf: A-Z that Oliver Bacon was Jewish, well, yes, there is the long nose, but was it a little joke to give a Jew the last name "Bacon"? Is that Kosher? It was a bit of a challenge to unravel the mystery of the bet, but it was more clear after finding out that Oliver was Jewish. The bet was that Oliver would never become anything because a Jew didn't have a chance. He seems to have had high ambitions. Maybe he changed his name to seem less Jewish. Maybe that's what the tapping of the nose meant as he walked down the street passing the other jewellers; however, wikianswers claims that it means "this is a secret." But then again, Jews were being rounded up in Germany at this time. Moving on to the nod to Joseph Conrad with the comment of mines and diamonds is South Africa, I wonder if she read any of his work. I think I read somewhere during this course that she did. After she leaves, he discovers the pearls are indeed fake, and that's why the weekend is going to be so very long. Is the truffle he routed out the invitation to spend the weekend with the duchess's family? But the truffle is rotten. Was it that he thought he bested this duchess, but then she got 20K for fake pearls? He thought he had the noble woman begging him, a low-born Jew, and, therefore, making her subservient to him, but she got one over on him. She dangled the bait of her daughter to the jeweler and caught herself 20K.

In my altered book, I write two letters for Angela, the wife from "The Legacy" -- one to her husband and the other to her lover -- and I change the outcome of the tale giving it a feminist twist. It was in writing these two letters that I realized both were holding or trying to hold power over her. B.M. made his demands, and Gilbert made his -- that she stay childlike, stupid -- excuse me ignorant, and beautiful while on his arm. B.M. employed blackmail to try to force her into his demands. They ended up together in death.

For "Lappin and Lapinova" I found it sad that the one way she felt a connection to her husband, he killed. The honeymoon was over, and he grew tired of the childish game.

Mark Hussey claims that both of the stories of the married couples deal with the woman being subservient to the male-dominant society. Rosalind tried to compensate by living in a fantasy world where her husband did accompany her for a time, and Angela tried to escape by trying to find worth in charity.

"The Searchlight," I must say that I didn't get it; however, with these people living in an old castle, I was reminded of the book I Capture the Castle. If these stories are about ghosts, then this is the ghost of her great-grandfather. The ghost in "Lappin and Lapinova" is the marriage and the rabbit royalty. In "The Legacy" it would be the wife, B.M., and the child Angela never had (ghost of a chance of having a child?). Oliver is haunted by his ambition, his mother, and his poor childhood. Maybe the ghost is partiarchy. Well, not for Oliver...

Woolf, Virginia. “The Duchess and the Jeweler.” A Haunted House, and other short stories.eBooks@Adelaide. 26 July 2010. Web. 2 November 2010.

---. “Lappin and Lapinova.” A Haunted House, and other short stories.eBooks@Adelaide. 26 July 2010. Web. 2 November 2010.---. “The Legacy.” A Haunted House, and other short stories.eBooks@Adelaide. 26 July 2010. Web. 2 November 2010.

---. “The Searchlight.” A Haunted House, and other short stories.eBooks@Adelaide. 26 July 2010. Web. 2 November 2010.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

When I began reading Tina Barr's article "Divine Politics: Viriginia Woolf's Journey toward Eleusis in To the Lighthouse, I initially felt that I would be overwhelmed with her turgid speech with words such as "prosodic" and "semiological," and after looking at the definitions, I realize that she is vastly more educated than me, and this is going to be a scholarly article written above my head. She calls upon the literary gods: Northrup Frye, Nietzche, and Kierkegaard to assist her with her "very detailed reading of the text in light of its mythic resonances (Barr 126).

Barr writes about how this novel helped Woolf to confront her childhood trauma, and, in doing that, she adds to the growing array of literary feminist discourse. She then delves into the mythical resonances and also mentions how this was a self-psychoanalytic novel for Woolf. Many scholars have used the Demeter - Persephone myth to illuminate the Mrs. Ramsay/Prue relationship. In my own estimation this errs. Barr does not critique this idea, so much as just comments on it: however, she does bring up a concept that I find more believable: Demeter is Mrs. Ramsay, and Lily Briscoe as the adopted daughter is Persephone. Lily only spends summers with Mrs. Ramsay, and it is believed that Lily represents Virginia Woolf in the story (Barr 130). Thus, as Lily is beginning to work on her painting, she finds it difficult to begin which takes us back to her quote from Nietzche in that he "susggest that man creates the mythic out of his fear of his ancestors" (Barr 129). So, at the end of the novel when Lily finishes her painting and thinks, "It was done; it was finished. Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue, I have had my vision" (TTL 211), we can now realize that this is Woolf saying that writing this was indeed carthartic and she is now free of the obsession. I never felt that Lily was as caught in the netting of the cult of Mrs. Ramsay until the last of the book as she struggled to finish her painting.

Barr believes that using the tool of the mythic substrata that Woolf can resolve character's identities by asserting importance to Lily's vision she has as she tries to finish her painting. Just as I'm feeling comfortable reading the article, this sentence comes along, "This mythic supplementation si not simply some Lacanian prosthetic simulacrum (OED: a material image made as a representation of some diety, person, or thing) of the missing phallic signifier" (Barr 131). She then relates to the reader how Mrs. Ramsay received many goddess images from Woolf which she uses her verbal prowess to prove. Just as I am reconciled that Barr has nothing to say about Augustus Carmichael, she comes up with a fresh idea: Mr. Carmichael acts as the hierophant (OED: An official expounder of sacred mysteries or religious ceremonies, esp. in ancient Greece; an initiating or presiding priest.). It was like a lost piece of the puzzle was found and properly placed. Logic had arrived.

In summation, her article is somewhat above the average undergraduate level being that she has interposed the ideas of many of the literary theorists; however, her basic sentence structure is not difficult to follow and her turgid speech was fitting. (I learned the word turgid for that other critical read, so I must make sure to employ it at every opportunity.)

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Just wanting to get some thoughts down before they evaporate, or fade-away, or scramble off with some other cute little idea that happens by....

I admit it, I'm coming out of the closet -- well, maybe not a closet, how about the back bedroom -- back to my point, I admit it: I'm coming out of the back-bedroom to admit that I like plot. I like multi-layered, fully formed characters whom I get to know, like, and sympathize and empathize and maybe even fantasize with or about or on. Yes, Virginia Woolf does give us characters, but she gives us just enough about these people that we must "guess the rest," or she gives us characters that are stereotypes so that we as educated readers know the rest. Finally in Between the Acts, we do have plot. Or do we? I'm only on page 66 (one digit short of being the Antichrist -- so don't be alarmed), so I'm not sure if this will follow the typical plot structure or not.

I feel that there is an introduction, and Giles certainly is acting like there may be some conflict on the horizon as he sits about so tensely I picture him to be white-knuckling. He mentions something (unfortunately I didn't mark it) about how can these people gad about so gayly (the 1930's definition, not the current definition -- "not that there's anything wrong with that") when there is such tension between the countries. His homophobia certainly could rise to a head (no pun intended). Before I leave this whole issue of plot behind me, I must, oh, yes, I must refer to page 63: "Did the plot matter?... The plot was only there to beget emotion... There was no need to puzzle out the plot... Don't bother about the plot: the plot's nothing." Is she telling us the reader not to bother looking for a plot because if it's there, it's nothing? Woolf doesn't really tell a story; does she? She relates impressions, attitudes, beliefs, opinions, and images. We see not into the character's mind, but hers.

Sometimes when I write these things I'm afraid to say what I would really like to say for all the same old reasons that people don't say or do what they really want. Fear. Alienation - negative thoughts: vulnerability will do that do you. And plus, this should be scholarly right. And another thing, who wants to be wrong and feel like you walked into school naked (egads, I always hated that dream). But, so far, I think the book is about women because it appears to present so many types of women: the old matronly, widowed sister; the foreign(ish), creative woman; the doting wife; and the cougar. Because doesn't Manresa strike you as being a cougar? Do you think she realizes that William is gay (our definition, not the 1930's definition)? I suppose all the stereotypical men are represented also: the staunch, old patriarch; the up-and-coming, oldest son; the misfit or homosexual who was bullied in school.

And another thing that I've noticed, and maybe this has been mentioned before in class. See, that's another problem I have. I sometimes think that I have a light-bulb moment, only to realize later that the thought was already embedded in my brain by someone else's previous conversation....so, this may not be new stuff. What I'm saying is this, "This probably isn't an epiphany, just an old thought, disinterred, and regurgitated." Conversation as Woolf writes it is clipped. If someone talked to me, like these characters talked to each other, I'd think that they had flipped, like -- gone crazy man (sorry, I dropped into 60's speech). It's in between the conversations that the poetry of her words shine. Melba Cuddy-Keane comments that Woolf writes in a hybrid style that mixes prose and verse. I have come to see this with this novel.

If I come up with any other ideas after reading the rest of the book, I'll put it here, because this has been more of a diarrhea of the mind, everything coming out without any filter...will I be brave enough to let it stand, or will I filter it later. In time, we'll have that answer.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Three Guineas is an essay written in novel form in which Virginia Woolf suggests what to do with three guineas. With the first guinea, she believes that it should go to the women’s colleges; however, they should be destroyed and then rebuilt after the model of men’s colleges.She tells the man who is asking for this dollar to put a note on it:‘Take this guinea and with it burn the college to the ground. Set fire to the old hypocrisies” (45).Women need to be educated for peace to reign.The second guinea she states should go to “a society to help the daughters of educated men to obtain employment in the professions” (51).Woolf quotes a Mr. C. E. M. Joad in this chapter.He appears to be the stalwart leader of the he-man-woman-hater’s club, especially being that a woman adds nothing to a conversation unless it’s a little bit of cleverness.So he believes that women cannot be astute, just witty.He believes that women should quit prying and putting in their two-cents into public affairs and return to the household duties (53).The third guinea she freely gives to the person who sent her the request for a guinea, and that person requested it to protect culture and intellectual liberty.

While eating breakfast this morning, I read an online article by Katherine Marshall in The Huffington Post entitled “Where Are Women’s Voices for Peace?A Conversation with Sister Joan Chittister.”It was interesting that an article written about 70 years after Three Guineas still questions where women’s voices are in peace.Sister Joan believes that until women quit being a token member of any movement or institution that there will never be peace.It’s pathetic that after 70 years from Woolf’s writing to now that women still don’t have equal influence upon society.Sister Joan’s ideas appear to be an echo of Three Guineas.

Concerning “Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid,” I wondered if it was plea for Americans to join the war because at the time that this was written, America was still wearing blinders and playing tiddlywinks at home, or is she admonishing Americans to take all her suggestions and make them “into something serviceable” and embrace peace?Even in her essays, Woolf has the ability to create a vast array of images in my head.One can see the search-lights flittering back and forth in the night’s sky, or hornets the size of planes flying over the home.She talks how we are prisoners and enslaved.That men should be freed from these ideas of war by searching for more honorable activities and access their creative feelings.I suppose if you create, you are less likely to destroy.But the irony is that if they save the Englishmen, the Germans and Italian men will still be enslaved.There was a line that gave me chills, “Let us try to drag up into consciousness the subconscious Hitlerism that holds us down” (2).I wondered what she specifically meant by this statement. The basis of the articles and books were addressing how women can assist in keeping peace.

I enjoyed reading Leonard Woolf’s article “Fear and Politics at the Zoo.”It didn’t have the anger in it that the two aforementioned works of V. Woolf did.He seasoned his article with more humor.

Friday, November 12, 2010

In her article “Demeter and Poseidon:Fusion and Distance in To the Lighthouse” Anne Golomb Hoffman tries to cover a lot of material.She begins her essay with stating that the novel has a tension between form and chaos, and she carries this forth into the realm of the mythical tales of Poseidon and Demeter and Persephone.She contends that Mrs. Ramsay is Demeter while Prue is Persephone.Mrs. Ramsay seeks form with her tendency of match-making; she wants everyone paired.Perhaps we could associate her better with Noah.Augustus Carmichael’s separateness is momentarily pulled in by the connection with Mrs. Ramsay in the admiring of the beauty of the fruit arrangement.Lily pulls him in with her needs in finishing her painting.She contends that Mr. C. was originally only in section one in the original manuscript.She contends that one of his roles in the novel is “to articulate the theme of the survival of culture amid the ravages of time and war” (184).

I think Hoffman stretches the novel to fit her belief that Mrs. Ramsay represents Demeter, especially when it is widely known that Mrs. Ramsay represents Virginia Woolf’s mother.Hoffman claims that the “identification with Demeter underscores the ritual function of woman in marriage and maternity” (185).Demeter is the bountiful goddess of the grain and is associated with wheat, corn, and poppies (Tatlock).The growing of grain is indeed propagation, but it is neither maternal nor matrimonial.Demeter, as far as I can remember, had an extremely close relationship with her daughter, Persephone.In contrast, Mrs. Ramsay was closest to her youngest son, James.If Demeter is associated with the bounty of grain food, it appears to me that that is of a cyclic nature.Hoffman quotes Julia Stephen’s directly that she prefers the sick to the well (187), so that doesn’t seem to represent the cyclic nature of rebirth.

I didn’t necessarily see a thread that ran through the paper; I felt as if she went into too many directions.The title of the article leads one to believe that the paper is also about Mr. Carmichael as Poseidon, and although she does mention it, it is a very small portion of the essay.She does a good job of explaining how she believes that Mrs. Ramsay is the aspect of fusion with the characters and with that I agree.

Although I think the title misleading, I believe the bit of information about Mr. Carmichael will help me with my paper.Ironically, it led me to the idea that Mr. Carmichael may be more related to Neptune than Poseidon (although Poseidon is the Greek version of Neptune the Roman god (Tatlock)).

Works Cited

Hoffman, Anne Golomb.“Demeter and Poseidon:Fusion and Distance in To the Lighthouse.”Studies in the Novel 16 (1984): 182-196.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

My favorite of the essays assigned for this week’s reading was “Walter Sickert:A Conversation.”The first line that hauled me in was “how statues and mosaics removed from their old stations and confined to the insides of churches and private houses lose the qualities proper to them in the open air” (187).This reminds me of Michelangelo’s David which was once displayed outside in the Piazza della Signoria but is now enclosed in a building (on the other side of Florence).The statue can still entice strong emotions to the surface, but how beautiful he would be outside with the sun shining on his marbled physique.It took me longer to read this essay because of the visuals that kept coming from the essay made me scribble little drawings in the margins where I usually make notes.Also, the essay encouraged me to investigate his paintings, so Google again comes to the rescue.I wanted to see how Sickert’s paintings made him “among the best of biographers” (191).He does indeed capture more of the person’s personality in his paintings; all sterility is erased.Whereas Woolf’s writings create a picture, his paintings create a story.She comments that he’s a realist and prefers to paint the lower middle-class.I’m not sure what the time frame is between this essay and whether or not Sickert painted his Camden Nudes all at once or just later made a collection of them, but they consisted of mostly prostitutes with some being very derogatory to women in my estimation which makes her statement on page 196 “he never sinks below a certain level in the social scale” a bit – hmmm, what word am I looking for?—ironic or just not fully informed?Whatever the case may be, I loved that I got to know a new artist.

I feel “The Death of the Moth” and “Evening Over Sussex:Reflections in a Motor Car” were both about death.The poor moth struggled to get out of the boundaries set for it and couldn’t succeed so it dies.I believe with “Evening over Sussex” that Woolf is comparing the sunset to aging or fading beauty, but it also looks forward to the future, because the star represents the future.She disassembles into four different selves to contemplate the sunset:1. “eager and dissatisfied,”2. “stern and philosophical” (1), 3. simple pleasure, and 4.the ADD self.I found the ADD self a bit hilarious: “a self which lies in ambush, apparently dormant, and jumps upon one unawares” (2).It reminded me of the t-shirt, “They don’t know, I don’t have A….OH, look a bunny!”

“Craftsmanship” was rather crafty.I loved the play on words, but could have gone without the imagery of the chicken with its head cut off.It appears that words like her novels and stories can have different interpretations.She comments that words are not useful because they can be interpreted different ways; however, some have come up with signs.One, two, or three gables for good places to stay; stars to denote a good painting, “So with a handful of stars and daggers the whole art criticism, the whole literary criticism could be reduced to the size of a sixpenny bit (2).Her wit shone through when she inferred that the English language was a bit of a naughty girl by having “gone a-roving” with several other different languages.I think the basis of this essay was to demonstrate the flux of words, or how they can change and signify different things for the variety of people.

One last comment about Sickert:did you know that Patricia Cornwell wrote a book claiming that Sickert was Jack the Ripper?

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Anne Levine begins her essay in giving the reader an example of how she taught Virginia Woolf’s short story “The Legacy”; she was a high school teacher.She divided her class up into two sections and told one group to sympathize with Gilbert and argue that Angela was the villain; the other group was to argue the reverse.Levine tells us that she thought Woolf’s writings an excellent example of how there can be different interpretations from readings.She reminds us that Woolf herself stated that “our task as readers is not to look simply for symmetrically arranged gig-lamps” (74).The meaning and significance isn’t all laid out for you the reader; we must search for the meaning.Of course, everyone brings their own identity to interpreting readings; therefore, people will interpret readings to their own perspective.

Levine helps us to realize her interpretation, which I believe is more in line with what Woolf would have intended.Gilbert represents the Victorian, domineering patriarchal husband that Woolf rebelled against.Levine puzzles out the meaning of “The Legacy” by using quotes from A Room of One’s Own.Angela is an excellent mirror for enlarging and reflecting her husband’s humongous ego, but yet his mirror of Angela only reflects a woman whose day exists of little trifles, low intelligence, and childlike behaviour.

Before she died she wouldn’t allow him to read her diary, but after her death, he was free to read them.The part of herself that she kept from him, she allowed him to see after her death.Did she hope to educate him?Levine relates other interpretations by different scholars, and here is one that I found to be very pertinent:“The crux of the tale is the husband’s realization that his wife—the one person he supposedly knows through and through, a woman he thinks belongs to him—is capable of a life . . . that he cannot share” (Kiely 88).

I haven’t read the short story yet, but this article was so straightforward that I believe it will be helpful in assisting me to understand the story.With that said, I must admit that in my head while began I reading this, I was shouting, “Woolf wouldn’t make Angela the demon!I know that one school of thought is that a reader shouldn’t bring the writer into the reading.But how can you not in a Woolf story?” Of course as I continued reading, I saw that Levine was giving this a more feminist reading.

And one last thought, I kept thinking of Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House while I read this.